Given three numbers x, y, z, and set x1=∣x−y∣, y1=∣y−z∣, z1=∣z−x∣. From x1, y1, z1, form in the same fashion the numbers x2, y2, z2, and so on. It is known that xn=x, yn=y, zn=z for some n. Find all possible values of (x,y,z).
Solution
First, consider 3 sequences (xn), (yn), (zn), n≥1 with x1=∣x−y∣,y1=∣y−z∣,z1=∣z−x∣ and ⎩⎨⎧xn+1=∣xn−yn∣yn+1=∣yn−zn∣zn+1=∣zn−xn∣ From this, it is easy to see that xn, yn, zn≥0 for all n. Let wn=max{xn,yn,zn}, n≥1. We have wn+1=max{xn+1,yn+1,zn+1}=max{∣xn−yn∣,∣yn−zn∣,∣zn−xn∣}≤max{xn,yn,zn}=wn. The equality occurs when there is at least one number among xn, yn, zn equal to 0. Hence, the sequence (wn) is non-increasing. Suppose that k is a positive integer such that (xk,yk,zk)=(x,y,z), then w1≥w2≥…≥wk=w1 which implies that w1=w2=…=wk. On the other hand, for all i=1,k, there is at least one number among (xi,yi,zi) equal to 0. Without loss of generality, we may assume that x≥y≥z=0 and we can see that x1=∣x−y∣, y1=∣y−z∣=y, z1=∣z−x∣=x so we have some cases:
1. If ∣x−y∣=0⇔x=y, we have the tuple (x,y,z)=(a,a,0) with a≥0. It is easy to check this tuple satisfies the given condition.
2. If y=0, to separate from the previous case, we consider x>0, we have the tuple (x,y,z)=(a,0,0) with a>0. But x1=a, y1=0, z1=a and from this, we cannot obtain (a,0,0) anymore. Hence, this case does not satisfy the given condition.
3. If x=0, we have x=y=z=0 which was mentioned above.
Therefore, the tuples (x,y,z)=(a,a,0) and its permutations with a≥0 satisfy the given condition. □
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